
The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 19th November 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 13th November 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 6th November 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 30th October 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 23rd October 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 16th October 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 9th October 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 2nd October 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 25th September 2023.

This is the 16th episode of our "Thinking the Unthinkable" series and I think we have come up with our catchiest title ever... “Is browser interoperability a threat to page building?" - truly inspirational!
Remember the good old days when no two browsers renders anything in the same way? You don't? You're lucky!
It used to be the case that all of the browsers went their own way. The result was a spaghetti of code, with little variations for each of the browsers.
This was a waste of our time, but it also held back the innovation with HTML and particularly CSS, for a decade or more.
Thankfully though, that's behind us, and the browser vendors seems to be speaking the same language. This means that in the future the browsers will do so much more, with far less complexity.
How much of a threat are browsers to Page Builders? Find out today on the podcast…

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 4th September 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 28th August 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 14th August 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 7th August 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 24th July 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 17th July 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 10th July 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 3rd July 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 3rd July 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 12th June 2023.

On the podcast we have Christiaan Pieterse from Maxi Blocks. If you've ever dug into WordPress block packs / suites then it's quite likely that what you're going to hear about Maxi Blocks today will be quite familiar, except one important thing - the pricing model. More on that in a minute. Maxi Blocks has all the blocks that you typical website needs. I could list them all here, but just click the link above and you'll find them. There's containers, headings, images, maps, groups, icons, sliders, all-the-things so to speak. The thing that's different here is that way that they're pitching the product. Maxi Blocks is free. There is no feature that is locked away. You have access to every block, every setting inside those blocks, no functionality is hidden behind a pro option. So, you're thinking, well this product won't last long. They'll go through their cash, give away everything and run out of road. Not so fast! They do have a pro version, but you're going to be paying only for pre-built designs and patterns. If you're curious about blocks, take a listen to the podcast, check out the Maxi Blocks site, and tell us what you think of the product in the comments.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 22nd May 2023.

It's the 7th in our “Thinking the Unthinkable” series where we attempt to rationalise controversial views on WordPress and web design? Today’s topic is… Designing in the browser is for amateurs. David thought this topic was about whether to use design software rather than jump in with a page builder or start amending a template. Nathan thought it was about how design tools are increasingly online and work in the browser leaving us not having to install software for our computer operating systems. We will cover both because more recently graphical tools that work in the browser are also capable of spitting out HTML code too. Please feel free to leave us a comment at the bottom of the post!

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 24th April 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 17th April 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 27th February 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which began Monday 6th February 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 30th January 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 9th January 2022.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 2nd January 2023.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 12th December 2022.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 5th December 2022.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 28th November 2022.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 21st November 2022.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 7th November 2022.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 31st October 2022.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 17th October 2022.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 10th October 2022.

With all these no code options, do you find your clients are becoming experts and no longer needing you? We try (and fail) to talk about this today and end up going on about JAMStack instead! It's a serious point though. Page Builders and Gutenberg have opened up the website creation process to a whole new audience, and it brings into question what we do as WordPress web developers / builders that make us worthwhile. What can you say to the client to make you seem like value for money in a time when 'affordability' is more important than ever, and when many of the tasks that used to be 'out of scope' for non-technical users, is not possible in an easy-to-use interface? Go listen...

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 26th September 2022.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 19th September 2022.

So if you've kept up with the latest developments in WordPress then you'll have heard the words / phrases 'Gutenberg', 'FSE', 'Block Themes', 'Blocks' and a lot more. You'll also likely have heard of our guest on the podcast today, Rich Tabor. He's been in the WordPress space for many years working in the theme space, but now he's shifted over to all the 'new things', and is making waves. He's got some monumental projects on the go (see the links on the WP Builds post for this episode), and is on the podcast today to talk about where WordPress is at right now and what he's hoping for in the future. It's a lovely interview with a very thoughtful guest, and if you're trying out the 'new WordPress things', or are just looking for a reason why you should, then this episode is for you!

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 15th August 2022.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 8th August 2022.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 25th July 2022.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 18th July 2022.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 11th July 2022.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 27th July 2022.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 20th June 2022.

So you've tried Gutenberg, and you might like to or you might not! But one thing that you cannot really argue about is that it's got some room for improvement. During the last few release cycles there's been more and more talk about block patterns and how they're going to make WordPress website building more straightforward. Block patterns are a collection of blocks that have been built and saved away for future use. So think about a typical use case, you have a hero section of your website that you might use over and over again. You build it one time, adding in a variety of blocks, and once you're happy, you save it and then later you can add it into any other part of your website with the click of a button. But here's the problem. The block editor is still a little but, how shall we say it... fun to use. It's got some quirks and you might not find it as easy as you'd wish to get pixel perfect patterns. Step in Extendify. They have a suite of pre-made block patterns which you can use. It's really all about making life simple. They're all built on top of WordPress Core blocks so there's no lock in and you can use them to learn how to build your own block patterns.

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing 25th April 2022.

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 11th April 2022.

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 28th February 2022

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 21st February 2022

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 31st January 2022

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 10th January 2022

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 10th January 2022

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 13th December 2021

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 29th November 2021

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing 22nd November 2021

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 15th November 2021

This week’s WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 8th November 2021 Another week, and we’re bringing you the latest WordPress news from the last seven days, including… Pagely has been bought by GoDaddy – what does this mean? WP…

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 1st November 2021

Writing is such a complex process. When we started to think about this topic, we thought that it would be really straightforward, but after some reflection, it turns out that there's a lot to say. Are you writing for yourself, for prose, for business, for a third party? Your relationship with that writing will be dramatically altered by the 'why' of the writing. What about this interface? Do you like it plain and simple, or perhaps you like all the bells and whistles so that you can get in the weeds of sizing and fonts? Perhaps writing is becoming a dying art. With social platforms promoting short, disposable text, are we dumbing down on what we write, as well as destroying our attention spans for reading? And what about AI? Perhaps there's going to be no need to write in the future; you'll just suggest things to some SaaS app and the writing is done for you? As I say, there's lots to discuss here and I hope that you enjoy the podcast...

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 25th October 2021

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing 27th September 2021

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing 13th October 2021

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing 30th August 2021

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 23rd August 2021

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing 16th August 2021

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing 9th August 2021

WordPress plugins... there are so many to choose from, but it's perhaps the fact that they exist that makes WordPress the huge success that it is. So what's the point of a plugin and how do they differ from themes. Will blocks be a replacement in the future? We get into the subject of what are the 'essential' plugins that we think every WordPress site needs and which ones we have earmarked as our favourites. This discussion could have gone on for hours, but thankfully it didn't! Find out what we think about WordPress plugins in the podcast today...

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 19th July 2021

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 5th July 2021

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing 28th June 2021

If you're creating newsletters for your content and you use WordPress, put that quill down and check out the podcast today. Newsletter Glue is a really great blocks product that I'm sure many of you are going to love. TL;DR you can create all your blog posts and emails at-the-same-time in the WordPress Block Editor. It's a huge time saver. Write once, publish on the web and to your list at the same time. It works with all the major email providers and I'm honestly loving using it. Not only that, but the WP Builds folk are going to get 15% off the plugin - check out the post for details. This is one not to miss and your email sending clients will love it too. Check out the podcast...

Menus are really rather important, although really underrated. They are, after all, the way that we make our way around the websites that we visit. So how should we think about them? At what point to they get discussed (if at all) in the website building process? There's more than you might think to this conversation... what type of menu works best, how do we add accessibility options into our menus, how do we create our menus and are we going to be using the new capabilities when WordPress' Full Site Editing enables us to handle the styling of our menus in WordPress core? Have a listen to the podcast and don't forget to drop a comment if you think that we got anything wrong! Go listen...

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing 31st May 2021

This week's WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 17th May 2021

This week's WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 5th April 2021

Gutenberg is here to stay, and love it or hate it, it's going to be a feature of WordPress for years to come. On the podcast today David and Nathan discuss Gutenberg and what they think of it. It's certainly getting better over time, and as a pure text editing tool, it's now pretty great. However, it's got ambitions to become a Full Site Editing (FSE) tool in the near future and that path collides with current Page Builders. So is it a useful alternative to them, or are you not convinced? Perhaps you can see that the roadmap makes it worth keeping an eye on, perhaps you're already using it to build your WordPress websites? Listen to the podcast today and let us know what you think of Gutenberg...

This week's WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 15th March 2021

This week's WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 22nd February 2020

This week's WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 15th February 2020

This week's WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 1st February 2021

This week's WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 18th January 2020

This week's WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 11th January 2021

This week's WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing Monday 4th January 2021

This week's WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 30th November 2020

So for those who don’t know what ClassicPress is we had better say... It's fork of WordPress 4.9 before the Gutenberg block editor was introduced and a reaction to the decision, it was started by a Laravel developer called Scott Bowler, a long term WordPress user who first campaigned for Gutenberg not to go into core (at least without being a majority support for it), and it started in August 2018 and continues to be developed with folk writing plugins solely for it, as well as some forking of other needed plugins like eCommerce and SEO options. All that said, why would anyone want to use it over good 'ol WordPress? Find out what we think in our final debate of the season...

This week's WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 23rd November 2020

This week's WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 16th November 2020

This week's WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 26th October 2020

This weeks WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 14th September 2020

This weeks WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 7th September 2020

This weeks WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 10th August 2020